Would the world actually be worse off with Hitler dead?

A common answer to the killing-baby-Hitler-dilemma is that you shouldn't kill him, because it'd likely result in something worse happening. A lot of times though, I feel that this is a cop-out on the dilemma, designed to be able to keep your personal morality while saving the lives of those who would have died without Hitler. So my question is, if Hitler were to have died at birth, how actually bad would history be without that genocidal maniac?
 
Well I picture Germany still becoming a nasty, and probably reactioanry dictatorship but not threatening World War.

Absent the War in Europe Japan likely still acts appallingly in China.

Stalin remains a crazed killer but the USSR does not dominate half of my continent (I am European, a Brit)

Maybe the depression goes on longer in the US.

Racism remains respectable for longer/

Still overall it is a better Planet
 
There is absolutely no way to know for certain. That reasoning for not killing baby Hitler is just an argument from ignorance.

The real reason why you shouldn't kill baby Hitler is that he is just a baby. And besides, if you really want to kill him then the Western Front is not exactly the safest place in the world...
 
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World's probably better. People say, "Oh, then genocide and racism would be cooler longer." I am not sure about that. The holocaust was the first major genocide in the age of mass media (newspapers, cinema, radio, etc.) Granted, it's industrial efficiency adds an additional level of nastiness, but the a-bomb and Soviet genocides would probably be enough to scare people off from overt acts of genocide in the west.
 
If you really want to kill him then learn fluent German, go back to 1914 and enlist in his regiment under an assumed name then shoot him in the back of the head in the heat of combat on the western front.
 
World's probably better. People say, "Oh, then genocide and racism would be cooler longer." I am not sure about that. The holocaust was the first major genocide in the age of mass media (newspapers, cinema, radio, etc.) Granted, it's industrial efficiency adds an additional level of nastiness, but the a-bomb and Soviet genocides would probably be enough to scare people off from overt acts of genocide in the west.

No it wasn't. You forgot the Armenian genocide.
 
Shooting Dictators

There's a quote I rather enjoy from Lords and Ladies (by Terry Pratchett) on the topic of shooting dictators:
...Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot one, and there’ll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?...
Edit:
For those not familiar with Terry Pratchett's works, Lord and Ladies is one of his (to my mind darkly humorous) 'Diskworld' novels.
 
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Yes, but it's not as well known as the Holocaust...especially as the Turkish government has a position of denial about it...

Further, mass media was in its infancy, radio did not exist, etcetera. The holocaust happened somewhere that was totally conquered so the world's press can come and take pictures of it.

If there were more videos and pictures of the Gulag and Holomodor, it is possible Stalin's name would be up there with Hitler's.* I mean, to us history freaks it is, but think of the average person. I work in a body shop, so if you ask them who Hitler was they're like, "He's a nazi he killed the Jews." Ask them about Stalin and you get a shrug.

You can't underestimate mass media.

*Just so I don't sound like a nazi apologist, if we had mass media coverage of the Nazi genocide of Belarussians. I researched it in college, something like 2 million dead out of eight million. That's 25% of everybody. If we take into account Nazi and USSR deportations, only 50% of Belorussians were able to stay alive in their own country.

Why do we never hear about it? No pictures, no videos, and no western media (or Second World media for that matter) that really wanted to cover the issue.
 

Deleted member 1487

I doubt it would be worse; Germany might still start a war or fall apart in some way, but there is very unlikely to be a dictator in Germany that would get nearly as far as Hitler did, because much of it was pretty much ASB; if you read about it was an ATL you wouldn't buy it for a second.
 
The Nazi party did exist before Hitler, but it is possible that without his leadership, the NSDAP would never have gotten the support it did and taken control of the Reichstag. Hitler was the driving force and his mastery at playing Hindenburg and von Papen into giving him control of Germany is what allowed the NSDAP the chance of ruling Germany. Without Hitler, I doubt that the NSDAP would be in a position to take control, averting World War 2 being started by the Nazi war machine.
 
If Hitler was killed, the butterfly effect means that I would have never been born. I can't imagine a worse possible universe than that.
 

Frances

Banned
Hitler himself said something to the effect of "Who remembers the Armenians?"

without the Holocaust you have racism, anti-jewish and eugenic attitudes lasting longer. Without Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you have the A-bomb developed in peacetime - so a greater chance of a devastating atomic war.
 

elkarlo

Banned
Well I picture Germany still becoming a nasty, and probably reactioanry dictatorship but not threatening World War.

Absent the War in Europe Japan likely still acts appallingly in China.

Stalin remains a crazed killer but the USSR does not dominate half of my continent (I am European, a Brit)

Maybe the depression goes on longer in the US.

Racism remains respectable for longer/

Still overall it is a better Planet
With no WWII decolonization may be nasty.
 

Deimos

Banned
A common answer to the killing-baby-Hitler-dilemma is that you shouldn't kill him, because it'd likely result in something worse happening. A lot of times though, I feel that this is a cop-out on the dilemma, designed to be able to keep your personal morality while saving the lives of those who would have died without Hitler. [...]

I'd like to add that killing Hitler long before he commits/orders/enables any of the crimes he is associated with, would be another moral dilemma. Unless of course one thinks history and its participants are predetermined in all their actions, however that is a belief which is counterproductive to the very idea of alternate history.
 
World's probably better. People say, "Oh, then genocide and racism would be cooler longer." I am not sure about that. The holocaust was the first major genocide in the age of mass media (newspapers, cinema, radio, etc.) Granted, it's industrial efficiency adds an additional level of nastiness, but the a-bomb and Soviet genocides would probably be enough to scare people off from overt acts of genocide in the west.

What Soviet genocide? I don't think what Stalin was doing to his people got that much attention in the west, and without Germany it's not even a sure thing that the Atomic Bombs would be used as the Western Allies would be able to put everything they have into attacking Japan.
 
What Soviet genocide? I don't think what Stalin was doing to his people got that much attention in the west, and without Germany it's not even a sure thing that the Atomic Bombs would be used as the Western Allies would be able to put everything they have into attacking Japan.
Would Japan actually decide to go to war with the Western powers if there had been peace in Europe? Perhaps they must be content with having Korea, Formosa and Manchuria, and withdraw from the Chinese war in the early 1940s.
 
Would Japan actually decide to go to war with the Western powers if there had been peace in Europe? Perhaps they must be content with having Korea, Formosa and Manchuria, and withdraw from the Chinese war in the early 1940s.

Withdrawing for the Japanese would be unacceptable. Remember that in OTL, rather than withdraw they brought the United States, a country who's industrial strength was comparable to Europe's into the war.

Although, you may be right about Japan. OTL, they waited until the British and French were busy getting kicked around by the Germans until they started going after their colonies. Without Hitler, WW2 might just be butterflied.
 

elkarlo

Banned
I doubt it would be worse; Germany might still start a war or fall apart in some way, but there is very unlikely to be a dictator in Germany that would get nearly as far as Hitler did, because much of it was pretty much ASB; if you read about it was an ATL you wouldn't buy it for a second.


Thing is, another war was bound to happen. The later it happens, the better the tech is, which possible means more people killed.

Also, with no bad press for genocide. I could easily see the French carrying out genocide in suppressing their colonial revolts. As they were pretty harsh OTL
 
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